Maybe I should read books twice. Maybe that would be the thing…Take notes and stuff. Nafisi, the professor in Reading Lolita in Tehran rad books again and again, making notes.
She’s a professor. One of those people who get to tell others instead of being told.
Well, maybe she has the right idea.
The thing about books is that they have a beginning a middle and an end. They are contained. They are a system, a closed system.
And a closed system is one that can be experimented on. You know what’s there, you can work within the system, and it remains.
Once, a long time ago, I closed a book because I was working too much within a system. I had been a very very very religious [in the meaning of unfalteringly regular, as well as the other meaning] Bible reader.
And I had done this for years. For several reasons, all of which someone or other will fault me, I stopped.
The reason I told myself at the time, and I still believe that it is the main reason, is that if the Bible is true, and I choose to believe that it is, it is a system that is fully integrated with the universe.
And if it is fully integrated with the universe, any understanding I have about ANYTHING [because anything and everything is part of the universe] will enhance my ability to understand and interpret the Bible.
I could feel in my bones, like a draft of wind or a change in air pressure, that I was not interpreting the Bible right.
And I knew without a doubt that I knew less than nothing about the world around me. I was 21. I consider this precocious of me.
So I thought, I need to work on the one part and get back to the other. Because I had a feeling that I was propping up a failing system.
And since I believe that the failing system could not be the Bible’s system, the system that was failing was my understanding/intrpretation of it.
So I needed to work on my understanding.
NOW, this is only an anecdote to illustrate my point about books. The Bible is a book, after all.
so, do I need to dig deeper into the books? OR back off the books?
This begs a question. What purpose are the books?
If the books are part of my lifelong quest for enlightenment, then they are important. That takes me back to the conclusion that I need to maximize my reading and the quantity/quality conundrum I mentioned before [previous post].
If the books are just for my amusement, though, then all this is nonsense. I should just read the books in whatever way I like.
If, however, the books are purely for my amusement, I am become a hedonistic pleasure-monster.
Which doesn’t make sense, because I seem to only enjoy books that challenge me.
And this leads to ontological and epistomological tail chasing.
It’s a moot point. We don’t know.
Which could lead back to that book I put aside when I was 21.
Some people do this. They choose a religion, accept it as a closed system, and devote their lives to it. Inside a hermitage or not.
“This” they say “is the source of the answers. I will bend myself to the answers this system provides.”
This seems like a good idea. It has the appearance of truth. Perhaps in many many cases it is the truth.
Except it is dangerous. I believe, as I did when I was 21 and even earlier, that true religion cannot be a closed system.
Because, who would be closing it? WHo would say, ‘We understand everything now, no more!’
It would have to be people. People who came to the conclusion that they understood everything.
That would be impossible. It’s not that I believe everything cannot be understood, I just cannot concieve of a human mind being able to do it.
Therefore, closing the system will result in it’s falsehood.
I love truth too much to do that. I will risk a lie, risk being wrong, in an open system. I feel like there is a chance in the open system. But the closed system is a lie from the beginning.
All this, because I am thinking about my reading habits.
I think too much.
Scratch me, and I bleed philosophy. I never stop.
